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| Friday, May 9 2008 6:22 PM
Last Updated: Monday, May 12 2008 9:57 AM
Eurydice Darrington’s mother didn’t consider herself artistically talented, though her paintings seem to belie that.
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What: Third annual Consumer Art Show sponsored by the Mental Health Department
When: 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Consumer Family Learning Center, 5121 Stockdale Highway
By putting her mother’s art in the county Mental Health Department’s Consumer Art Show, her mom’s work will get the recognition it deserves and may inspire other artists to embrace their own talents, Darrington said.
“I want people to recognize the gifts they have and realize that they are gifts,” said Darrington, program specialist with the department’s Consumer Family Learning Center, where the show will be Monday and Tuesday.
Darrington looks at the painting her mother, Joyce Mary Edwards, painted while confined to bed. Pink flowers dot the small canvas. Her other work includes pottery and two portraits of African people.
Edwards, who suffered from bipolar disorder and died in November, used her art as a release. Darrington sees emotion in several of the show’s other pieces too.
“We work so hard to contain emotion,” she said. “But here you get true emotion because they can’t control it. It just comes.”
A painting she finds particularly compelling shows an orange tornado against a black background. A blue hand reaches up from the bottom of the painting.
“That’s how that man felt with schizophrenia,” added Carol Shertzer, the department’s outreach and education coordinator.
Some of the other paintings from the same artist show a tranquil blue lake with a swan, green trees and a butterfly, representing more peaceful feelings.
As of early Friday, 100 pieces from roughly 40 artists had been submitted. They include sketches, crafts, handmade jewelry and poems, along with paintings.
“The art is therapeutic for people. It expresses their feelings,” said Nora Marin, a recovery specialist with the center, which also offers support groups and classes on recovery and hobbies. “We wanted a way for the public to know that recovery was possible.”